the wrong side of the bed

so, i started the day okay, but the prospect of doing anything, anything at all, is weighing on me quite heavily. last week i said that some shoes might make me happy. now i think i need this book and collection of stickers, too.

come through for me, people.

lately i have been getting a lot of spam emails. mostly about "mmomys" and the things they are willing to do. i don't mind spam because it is easy enough to delete messages. in the past few weeks i have begun to look forward to my daily spam. why? suddenly instead of getting emails from 3809punpa09@hotmail.com, i am getting messages from "Varsity E. Presumably" and "Laurence G. Uncompressed." why, why, why am i just dorotha lynn harried? why couldn't i have a father like jeremy who might have named me cheddar bay freese?

this weekend has taken a lot out of me and, predictably, i have accomplished nothing. i think, in fact, that things in my life have possibly regressed to the point that things i had taken care of have come undone. my apartment is a shambles, my school work has been neglected, i have failed to call one of my best friends (um, at this point i'd like to give a "shout out" to carole. carole, if you are reading, you rule the fucking school), and i don't even want to get into the rest. additionally, i must have spent six hours at the mall on saturday in the course of two separate trips. so much time at the mall is never a good thing.

considering how things could be right now, i feel remarkably chipper. i'm going to just give up on making anything of this weekend. i'm off to read comic books in bed. i'm setting my alarm for six. tomorrow i plan to be on top of my game.

yeah.

...but at least i enjoyed the box of dots that i just ate. that's good, right?

have you ever been to carrascolendas?

yeah, i didn't think you had. i grew up in texas, after all.

i just had my second horrible panic attack of the day. could someone please purchase a squeeze machine for me? i'm tired of asking my friends to sit on my chest.

i just had the worst panic attack i have had in a while. am i suprised? no. i guess i just get to have them a lot. it is like a special treat! way better than those fake carrots made of wood that people give hamsters to chew on.

if you think it would help, you could consider sitting on my chest or something.

sorry i never posted the rest of the new york story. i guess i sort of lost interest. plus the people i was with might read my blog and the things i wanted to comment about were parts of their lives. i just couldn't think of a fair way to do it, so i dropped the ball on my report.

today i find that i really want to tell you something mundane. i know you won't care, but at least it is something, right?

this morning for breakfast i had sourdough rye bread, which i love. i toasted it and put butter and honey on it. yes, this is one of my dark secrets. i love honey on rye bread. it tastes super yummy, but not quite right. try it.

i'm back from new york. i have quite a bit to blog about (although last night when i was telling stories about my trip to a friend, everything i said seemed boring), but i have no compelling narrative to connect them together. i am going to break everything up into teensy bits, yah? for easy digestion. i mean, it's all about you. it always is.

i am weirdly glad that i am back in madison. maybe i am happy here? what do you all think? do i seem happier than i have in the past? am i glad to be in school and not somewhere else?

i want a piece of chocolate cake. a really big one. with a glass of soymilk. and maybe, just a little bit, to be doted on. gah. could i get anymore demanding? actually, yes. i would like to have a ride home from school.

good thing i don't like ponies or i'd want one of those, too.

i've been trying to think of a good story to make of this post for quite some time now, but i can't get the narrative right. i'm just not sure what i want the message here to be. i think there are really two things going on here: the first is that i am incredibly jealous and insecure by nature, and the second is that i am a committed pessimist. i know it isn't really "done" to tell you right off the bat the themes of my post, but i'm just not that skilled a writer, and i want to make sure you get the take home message, okay? so, yeah, here you go.

on friday i am flying out to NYC to see my friend sean, who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend. sean and i are still very close and talk at least 3 times a week. there have been times, even after we broke up, when we spoke to each other every day. i am visiting him because he has his first big art opening this weekend. i couldn't be more proud of him and i want to be there because i feel like it i am somehow part of his life as an artist.* i mean, i moved to the east coast with him while he was getting his MFA at yale, so, really, this is sort of a milestone for me, too. his hard work is paying off, but so (sort of) is mine. i picked him up every night at his studio during the year we lived together. i lent him money for art supplies. i helped him stretch canvas. i'm in one of his paintings (only one!). i feel like this show is important to me, too, even though i'm not with the boy anymore.

so, the problem with going to see sean has nothing to do with his art show or that i am really too busy to go (ugh, so much work!), but that i will meet his girlfriend. though sean and i have been apart longer now than i think we were together, i am still insanely jealous and protective of my relationship with him. like i said, i am insecure. i see his girlfriend as a threat to what i have with sean, who is my best friend on earth. sean, whether he likes it or not, is mine. he is part of my life. he was there in the hospital with me right after my nephew was born. my family considers him a member. mine, get it? he's mine. anyway, i am, of course, threatened by his girlfriend, even though sean and i will never get back together (tons of reasons i won't go into).

a week or two ago i was talking to sean on the phone, telling him that i was worried about meeting his girlfriend. he was sort of worried, too, especially because i can be so aggressive with people when i meet them (this is some sort of poorly thought out strategy on my part that makes it easier for me to interact with strangers). i told him that i would try to be good, but i just couldn't predict what would happen. sean didn't (and still doesn't) think the two of us will get along, that we will be too different. i asked to speak to his roommate, and sean put zak on the phone. i told zak about my fears and he said, "it's like this, dorotha: if there were a green rapist, you would say, 'i hate him! he's a rapist!!!' amy** would say, 'but he's green! i like him.'" amy, you see, likes all things green. this cracks me up, but, geez, i wouldn't really like a rapist no matter what color. i have been walking around ever since this conversation thinking about how my glass his half full, but half full of rapists.

i was talking to my mom about my visit and i told her that i was a little nervous about meeting amy. i relayed zak's comparison between us. this is how it played out:

...and she'd say, "but he's green!"
she sounds really nice.
yeah, ma, i think she is.
that sounds like it could be really good for sean. sean should be with someone nice.
ma, do you hear what you're saying?
what?
you are implying that i was bad for sean because, as everyone knows, i am so mean.
that's not what i meant!
whatever, ma.

i told sean this story. he laughed for what seemed like hours. thanks, pal.

anyway, in addition to being nicer than me, she beats me in a lot of other ways. i pretty much have 2 good traits. quirky and funny. otherwise, ick.

here are all of the ways that amy beats me:

nicer
better at art (holy crap, she's good!)
thinner
hotter
girlier
more lizards

anyway, expect me to come back from new york feeling more insecure than i do at this incredibly low moment.


* sean is one of the only people on earth who actually appreciates my unholy mean streak. some people put up with it. some people ignore it. sean actually likes me the better for it. sean and i met when i got a job at the toy store where he worked. we were both undergrads and so, when introduced, we asked each other our majors. when he told me he was in studio art, i asked him "are you good, or do you suck?" instead of being offended, he laughed, and then told me he was good, very good.

** her name isn't amy.

i finished almost all of my laundry this weekend. i have one load left (yes, i let a lot of laundry accumulate), but i had to stop. why? well, i could lie to you and say that one of my neighbors needed to do some wash, but the truth is it was getting dark and i'm afraid of basements! i know, it is ridiculous, but everytime i am in a basement, i start having visions of being hacked to pieces by escaped killers. this fear is worse when it is dark. basements never have enough lighting. at night they are full of dark corners. dark corners in which knife-wielding lunatics lurk.

so, i've still got some dirty clothes. and some weird paranoias.

why is it that one page, one stinking page, is left out of nearly every set of readings that i have purchased or printed for a class?

i hate the weekend. it's a new thing with me. i hate, hate, hate the weekend. i'm hungry. i have no food in my house. i lack the will to order something for delivery. i lack the will to walk to the corner store. i think that i am sad. i know i am.

at least i did some laundry. i will sleep on clean sheets tonight. i will wear clean underwear tomorrow.

update: i did three loads of laundry. i left a tube of cotton candy flavored lip balm in the pocket of a pair of jeans that i washed in the second load. i ruined a whole slew of shirts. ah, i will wear them anyway. i am a slob. perhaps no one will even remark on it, that is how unremarkable my slovenliness is.

laura bush attended a show as part of fashion week in NY. i'm supposed to think this is newsworthy. she is the first first lady whose participated in fashion week, despite having once said that she wasn't interested in fashion. at least the particular event in question was meant to raise awareness of heart disease in women, i guess.

thanks for letting me know, new york times online edition.